A game by cyberlife, "Creatures 3" will install, and will prompt for a CD, it
will even (somehow) create an AOL shortcut on my Ubuntu 8.10 desktop but when I
go to actually run the game, my machine makes a sound like it's running it then
it just stops and doesn't run the game at all.

The game is a fairly old game, needing Direct X 7 to run. My best guess would
be that the version of Direct X that comes with WINE just won't run it but
being that it is so old I can't imagine why not.

I dual boot between Ubuntu and Windows XP Home, and Windows XP will run the
game just fine.

[Bug 16117] Creatures 3 Won't Run

> A game by cyberlife, "Creatures 3" will install, and will prompt for a CD, it
> will even (somehow) create an AOL shortcut on my Ubuntu 8.10 desktop but when I
> go to actually run the game, my machine makes a sound like it's running it then
> it just stops and doesn't run the game at all.
>
> The game is a fairly old game, needing Direct X 7 to run. My best guess would
> be that the version of Direct X that comes with WINE just won't run it but
> being that it is so old I can't imagine why not.
>
> I dual boot between Ubuntu and Windows XP Home, and Windows XP will run the
> game just fine.
>

(In reply to comment #1)
> Please attach terminal output.
>

I launched from the Shortcut made under WINE. I don't know how to launch it in
the terminal.

I don't know. Only that it was the only version available in Synaptic Package
Manager. But I do know it is a version that can run .exe files without the
command prompt because I have been able to open other .exe

Actually, I think the problem running Creatures 3 is related to a specific game
requirement.

You can't just double-click engine.exe and get it to work, even in windows. In
windows it requires that the shortcut to specify an autokill switch but
shortcuts in Ubuntu seem to work differently. This is the error message I now
get:

NLE0007: You must specify a game name in the command line.
For example, Creatures 3 or Creatures Adventures

For soak tests, specify --autokill before the game name
to kill agents which generate run time errors.

[Bug 16117] Creatures 3 Won't Run

--- Comment #10 from Henri Verbeet <[hidden email]> 2009-10-30 04:18:21 ---
(In reply to comment #9)
> The game worked for me 1.1.18, but in 1.1.32 I can't get this or any other game
> to work with opengl + 16 bit color. I get these errors:
>
> err:wgl:X11DRV_WineGL_InitOpenglInfo couldn't initialize OpenGL, expect
> problems
> err:d3d_caps:WineD3D_CreateFakeGLContext Can't find a suitable iPixelFormat.
> err:d3d:InitAdapters Failed to get a gl context for default adapter

If it still works with 1.1.18, please do a regression test. Usually that
message means your OpenGL setup is broken though.

The regression in 1.1.30 happens with Starcraft in 16 bit color mode as well:
in 1.1.29 and lower it works (but gives the same console error messages as
Creatures); in 1.1.30 and above the screen is black but I can tell it's still
running because it makes sounds when I click in certain places.

[Bug 16117] Creatures 3 Won't Run

--- Comment #12 from [hidden email] 2009-10-30 18:38:31 ---
After further testing I realized that I sometimes get the error dialog and
sometimes don't in all versions. So the only regression is the blank screen in
1.1.30.

--- Comment #14 from Stefan Dösinger <[hidden email]> 2009-11-04 15:03:31 ---
Does reverting the patch on todays wine tree fix the game? Most of the changes
this patch made were d3d9 specific, so I am kinda surprised that it breaks a
ddraw game.

If reverting fixes the game, or if the patch doesn't revert cleanly, please
attach a ddraw,d3d7,d3d_surface log

There's a bug in the init code that prevents the format info from being
initialized if opengl is not available. So a quick fix for you is to fix your
OpenGL setup, and I'll try to get the format init working without opengl.

Up until now initializing the dynamic format entries with GL only was by
design, since the flags only contained GL specific stuff. Maybe we'll have to
move some flags to the non-gl format template table.